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and then 22,015

Nope... he was just a reporter who took advantage of a sweet situation. It was an embarrassment but that's as far as it went in the case of McChrystal. Now IF it comes to light he was working on something new.... But that would have to be proven to me. Otherwise I could accuse anyone of darned near anything and taint them forever - would YOU want to live in that world?

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Babe Ruth 4,839

Have you ever owned or driven a Mercedes? They are very well designed and built. Nothing against the British auto companies, but German engineering is world renowned, wouldn't you agree?

Crash test results are fun to watch, and of course those vehicles don't contain gasoline, for the obvious reasons.

Unless the guy was doing like 150MPH on that street, how on earth does the transmission separate from the rest of the vehicle when the body of the car is still relatively intact? And such a big fire? I've seen a few cars become involved myself, but never anything like that.

Infowars was reporting yesterday that Hastings had been in contact with Wikileaks just an hour before the accident, regarding an upcoming story he was writing about the CIA.

Kowalski 5,770

Have you ever owned or driven a Mercedes? They are very well designed and built. Nothing against the British auto companies, but German engineering is world renowned, wouldn't you agree?

Crash test results are fun to watch, and of course those vehicles don't contain gasoline, for the obvious reasons.

Unless the guy was doing like 150MPH on that street, how on earth does the transmission separate from the rest of the vehicle when the body of the car is still relatively intact? And such a big fire? I've seen a few cars become involved myself, but never anything like that.

Infowars was reporting yesterday that Hastings had been in contact with Wikileaks just an hour before the accident, regarding an upcoming story he was writing about the CIA.

The journalist Michael Hastings, who died in what authorities have described as a high-speed car crash, was an active member of

Project PM, a crowd-sourced research effort to expose government intelligence contractors.

The login screen for Trapwire, software used for intelligence-gathering on U.S. and global citizens and made public in a Wikileaks data dump.

“If you care that the surveillance state is expanding in capabilities and intent without being effectively opposed by the population of the West, you can assist in making this an actionable resource for journalists, activists, and other interested parties,” the Project PM wiki states. “Consider doing a bit of research on the companies and government agencies listed on this wiki, or even adding new topic for investigation by our participants.”

Barrett Brown, the founder of the initiative, was arrested by the FBI and faces up to 105 years in prison. Brown is described as the “brain trust” for the hacktivist group Anonymous.

Brown’s Stratfor hack revealed the inner workings of Trapwire software. It purportedly acquires video from far-flung surveillance cameras located in stores, casinos and other businesses around the country and uses sophisticated facial recognition software to identify people of interest captured by ubiquitous cameras numbering in the millions.

Trapwire software is a significant breakthrough for the surveillance state. It was uncovered by security researcher Justin Ferguson. He delved into the massive pile of emails hacked by Brown from Stratfor – the Austin-based firm regarded as a shadow CIA – on Christmas of 2011. In response to Ferguson’s discovery and the Trapwire revelation, Wikileaks was hit with a large scale distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.

Brown discovered the software produced by Trapwire is owned by Cubic, a San Diego company acquired by Abraxas Corporation. Barrett also uncovered tax returns calling into question Cubic’s denial that it is not affiliated with Trapwire and the software.

Abraxas is run by a former CIA spook, Richard Helms (not to be confused with the CIA director under Nixon). He was also one of the original assignees to its Counter Terrorism Center in the mid-1980s.

Moreover, according to Florida State’s records of corporations, Helms is the director of Ntrepid, a company that won a $2.76 million dollar contract from Centcom, the U.S. Central Command. Ntrepid innovated a product called Tartan, a program that can “analyze illicit organizations and less structured social networks by identifying: Ranks of influence within human networks… [and can] end the use of [online] aliases.”

“Clearly they are looking to dismantle the smoke and mirrors that groups like Anonymous maintain, by hanging out in chatrooms where they do not need to identify themselves officially, with many private communications happening at once,” writes McGuire. “This creates a difficult-to-penetrate den, where people can easily hide online. Evidently, Ntrepid is seeking to pull all of that apart with Tartan.”

Michael Hastings’ association with Barrett Brown and his work on Project PM, in addition to his outing a top U.S. general responsible for conducting the war in Afghanistan – a key mantlepiece in the manufactured war on terror – undoubtedly put him at risk and resulted in his assassination.

It can no longer be claimed that Hastings was merely the victim of a car accident. He was specifically targeted for his investigative journalism, most recently stories he was developing on the FBI and the CIA, as we noted earlier today.

Obviously, the intelligence and surveillance state is intimately involved in an effort to eliminate whistleblowers and journalists who get too close to the truth. The murder of Michael Hastings should send a chill down the spine of journalists everywhere, especially those in the alternative media.

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Rafterman 6,509

Have you ever owned or driven a Mercedes? They are very well designed and built. Nothing against the British auto companies, but German engineering is world renowned, wouldn't you agree?

Crash test results are fun to watch, and of course those vehicles don't contain gasoline, for the obvious reasons.

Unless the guy was doing like 150MPH on that street, how on earth does the transmission separate from the rest of the vehicle when the body of the car is still relatively intact? And such a big fire? I've seen a few cars become involved myself, but never anything like that.

Infowars was reporting yesterday that Hastings had been in contact with Wikileaks just an hour before the accident, regarding an upcoming story he was writing about the CIA.

This one fits the pattern, don't you think?

That is certainly true about Mercedes and frankly many other cars. The same can be said for airplanes - some of the best made and dependable machines in the history of mankind.

But yet they still have malfunctions, they still crash, and they still explode on occasion.

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seeder 31,145

Who's your daddy

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Never forget that only the weak fish swim with the stream, and a lie travels half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Have you ever owned or driven a Mercedes? They are very well designed and built. Nothing against the British auto companies, but German engineering is world renowned, wouldn't you agree?

Crash test results are fun to watch, and of course those vehicles don't contain gasoline, for the obvious reasons.

Unless the guy was doing like 150MPH on that street, how on earth does the transmission separate from the rest of the vehicle when the body of the car is still relatively intact? And such a big fire? I've seen a few cars become involved myself, but never anything like that.

Infowars was reporting yesterday that Hastings had been in contact with Wikileaks just an hour before the accident, regarding an upcoming story he was writing about the CIA.

This one fits the pattern, don't you think?

Id agree totally on German cars being among the best, and I think Ive made clear before that I dont really go in for the CT angle, but it was PRECISELY the fact that the engine blew off down the street that I posted this story. Engines in a crash are usually always left in the car, as you know, so yes it is rather strange that the engine 'blew' down the street the 50 yards or whatever, Ive never ever heard of that before. In fact its pretty unusual too for cars to break out in flames in a crash as the fuel tank is at the back, so yes, it is very very odd indeed

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glorybebe 5,387

Id agree totally on German cars being among the best, and I think Ive made clear before that I dont really go in for the CT angle, but it was PRECISELY the fact that the engine blew off down the street that I posted this story. Engines in a crash are usually always left in the car, as you know, so yes it is rather strange that the engine 'blew' down the street the 50 yards or whatever, Ive never ever heard of that before. In fact its pretty unusual too for cars to break out in flames in a crash as the fuel tank is at the back, so yes, it is very very odd indeed

I agree. Not big on CTs myself, but when I first heard the story and the results of the crash, I thought it was pretty fishy.

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Kowalski 5,770

I believe the car hit the tree, after it exploded, according to eyewitnesses. He was driving down the street, going fairly fast (was he being chased?) and the car caught fire, and exploded, it then hit the tree. The engine was found down the street!

This is definitely weird....

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seeder 31,145

Who's your daddy

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Location:UK. There if you need me

Never forget that only the weak fish swim with the stream, and a lie travels half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

"27 year fire fighter here, seen many a car accidents and dead people from them, never have I see a car explode and shoot the engine down the street, this was a bomb. is the car smashed in or was the engine ripped out and thrown...look at the metal, is it push in or ripped out"?

"Sure, wear did the hood of the car go. Did they fill the oil sump with nitroglycerin -- don't these cars have a fuel pump cut out. Were the brakes jerried. Maybe they filled the passenger compartment with ether so the drive would go unconscious. Is there even and investigation for fowl play. Have they warned the police not to investigate. Surely Death-incorporated has hundreds of methods".

"I worked at a parts yard for 6 months last year, foreign and parted many a Mercedes. there is triple redundancy built into the gas tank vents.it has baffles and hoses coming out everywhere. gas doesn't explode the vapors do. it must be compressed and released by an open flame, a lit cigarette at 500 degrees thrown into gas goes out, 500 degrees is lower then it's flash point of 750. what I'm trying to say is, they don't blow up. the tank is under the back seat, not under the trunk, the middle of the car is intact and I bet the gas tank was too.

"I have been working on auto fuel systems for 20 years and I can tell you NO WAY. The fuel pump would cut off the instant the engine stopped or the impact sensor was triggered. If the tank burst the fire would be on the street under the vehicle. Manufactures spend so much money and engineering to make sure this wont happen and that car has so much electronic safety gear on board.

This thing was clearly burning from the inside out.

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Kowalski 5,770

My mother, has actually, crashed into a tree before, on multiple occasions (Yeah, I know, she needs to stop doing that....) and not once has the car exploded, or burned up like that. And some, have been pretty bad, too....

'Paranoid' Michael Hastings told WikiLeaks lawyer he was being investigated by the FBI only a few hours before deadly car crash

"The reporter was no stranger to death threats. In his book, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan, he recalls the time one of General McChrystal's staff members told him: 'We'll hunt you down and kill you if we don't like what you write'.

Hastings wrote: 'I wasn't disturbed by the claim. Whenever I'd been reporting around groups of dudes whose job it was to kill people, one of them would usually mention that they were going to kill me.'

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Sweetpumper 10,602

I was stopped at the light at Santa Monica [boulevard], headed south on Highland [Avenue]. I looked down to turn my radio down, and this car just blasted past me through the red light—it shook my car. No telling how fast the driver was going. A taxi driver was in the far right lane and we looked at each other, both saying, "What the hell was that?"... By the time the light changed, I could only see the tail lights of the white Mercedes—it was probably past Willoughby by then which was the next red light that I got stopped at. The Mercedes was flying down Highland. The same cab driver pulled up to the light at Willoughby [Avenue] and I looked over at him again in disbelief. Right as I did, the cab driver said something to the effect of, "He didn't make it." The [Mercedes] was all the way south of Melrose [Avenue] at this point.

I looked down Highland and saw a giant fireball at the base of one of the palms that line the medians on Highland. It was surreal. Even from as far away as I was, I could see how violent an impact it had been. I live in the area so parked near my place and sprinted over the the scene of the accident. As I was running, a couple of workers from the service station at the corner of Melrose and Highland were also running over. In broken English, one of them and I traded stories of what we saw as we ran. From what I could understand, he saw the car come off the ground at some point—maybe when [it] crossed Melrose.

A Hancock Park resident was already spraying the car with his water hose when we got to it, but wasn't making any progress. The car was engulfed. I couldn't see inside it. Fire trucks and police cars were at the scene almost immediately, it seemed.

I stayed and watched firefighters extinguish the the blaze. Bummed a cigarette from a guy named Jeremy and traded stories about what we saw. He was right around Melrose and Highland when it happened. I gave a statement to police and walked home.

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DeWitz 1,330

Good thread; truly an unexplained mystery at this point. In a context in which the sales of George Orwell's 1984 have increased 6,000% in a few weeks; when the US FBI/CIA/NSA 'intelligence' apparatus is apparently out of control and staffed by high school drop-outs, amoral functionaries and flat-out rogues; and TNT is applied to 'solve' all kinds of situations to no avail (from Islamic IED's to 'smart bombs' and drone strikes killing civilians), anything can happen. RIP Michael.

well I checked the news for updates, not much has changed, tho the LA times says this:

"FBI says journalist Michael Hastings was not under investigation"

LAPD also says no foul play appears to have been involved in the one-vehicle crash that killed Hastings. The reporter was known for an article leading to Gen. Stanley McChrystal's resignation.

and

"Officials still are trying to determine if the car had a mechanical problem, if Hastings may have had a medical condition or if he consumed substances that could have impaired his driving. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Video of the accident scene showed the car engulfed in flames. Law enforcement sources said that the car appeared to be going at a high rate of speed but emphasized that the investigation was ongoing.